Six Evergreen Challenges All Businesses Should Prepare For: A Greiner Curve Perspective

At hgkc, we find that one of the most useful frameworks for thinking about business evolution is Larry Greiner’s Growth Model, which outlines a series of phases organisations go through as they grow. Each stage ends in a “revolution” or a critical point of internal crisis, which requires companies to adapt or risk stagnation.

As businesses scale, they don't just encounter one-off problems. Certain challenges are timeless—evergreen—and show up repeatedly, albeit in different forms. Here are six such challenges, examined through the lens of Greiner’s Evolution and Revolution Model.

1. Leadership Succession (The Leadership Crisis)

In the early stages of a business—Greiner’s first phase—growth typically hinges on the founder's vision and energy. But as the company expands, centralised decision-making becomes a bottleneck.

This leads to the first revolution: a crisis of leadership. The organisation needs to shift from a founder-led model to a more formal management structure. Succession planning becomes critical not just at the top, but throughout the senior leadership.

Whether you're transitioning from founder to CEO, or replacing executives in a mature company, leadership succession is a challenge that never disappears. It must be approached proactively to avoid sudden vacuums and cultural breakdowns.

Our advice: Develop internal leadership pipelines early, document institutional knowledge, and don’t delay succession conversations—even when things are going well.

2. Nurturing High-Potential Employees (The Autonomy Crisis)

Once formal leadership is in place, businesses enter a phase where managers take on more responsibility. Here, the company often struggles with balancing control and autonomy. Talented employees want growth, influence, and room to make decisions, but many companies still operate with top-down controls.

This leads to Greiner’s second revolution: the autonomy crisis. Without a structure for empowerment, high-potential individuals leave, feeling stifled or overlooked.

Our advice: Create clear paths for development, invest in mentorship, and give future leaders real responsibilities. Retention isn’t just about perks; it’s about opportunity.

3. Generating New Business (The Control Crisis)

As companies scale further, they begin to emphasise coordination and formalised processes. But in doing so, bureaucracy often creeps in. This phase ends with the third revolution: a crisis of control.

Why? Because the focus shifts too heavily towards managing what exists, not building what’s next, and the company becomes reactive rather than innovative.

Generating new business, whether through new products, services, or markets, is critical at every stage. Businesses must constantly renew themselves to stay relevant.

Our advice: Dedicate teams to innovation, adopt an experimental mindset, and avoid letting processes kill agility. Make room for strategic risk-taking, not just operational efficiency.

4. Staying Ahead of the Competition (The Red Tape Crisis)

After implementing complex coordination mechanisms, companies eventually run into the red tape crisis, the fourth revolution in Greiner’s model. Decision-making slows, internal politics rise, and competitors take advantage of your sluggishness.

Competition is not a one-time threat; it evolves constantly. New entrants, disruptive technologies, or changing customer expectations can make yesterday’s edge today’s liability. We’re seeing this with artificial intelligence (AI) right now.

Our advice: Maintain competitive intelligence, flatten decision-making structures where possible, and stay customer-focused, to keep one step ahead.

5. Responding to Market Trends (The Internal Growth Crisis)

As companies mature, they often begin acquiring other businesses or expanding into adjacent markets to maintain momentum. Greiner suggests the next likely revolution is around internal growth, that is the difficulty of integrating different units and responding to fragmented markets.

Keeping up with market trends, be that consumer behaviour, technology or regulation, requires flexibility. However, larger companies often struggle with agility due to their size and complexity.

Our advice: Build cross-functional teams that are tuned into market signals, empower customer-facing employees, and invest in real-time analytics. A business that stops listening to the market will soon find the market moving away from it.

6. Withstanding Economic Downturns (The Identity Crisis)

Beyond the original five stages of Greiner’s model, modern interpretations suggest a sixth: the identity crisis. After years or decades of growth, a business may face existential questions, particularly in times of economic downturn.

During recessions, inflationary shocks, or industry-specific collapses, many companies lose their way. If a business’s identity is tied only to growth or market dominance, downturns can trigger a crisis of purpose.

Our advice: Cultivate a purpose and mission that transcends profits. Ensure your culture, customer relationships, and brand values are resilient. Scenario planning and cash reserves are essential, but so is emotional resilience and leadership clarity.

Final Thoughts

The Greiner model teaches us that no phase of business growth is easy. Instead, each stage presents a new kind of challenge, one that demands different leadership skills, organisational design and culture.

These six challenges—leadership succession, nurturing high-potential talent, generating new business, competition, market trends, and economic downturns—are not just hurdles, they're signals. They tell you where your business is on its evolutionary journey and what kind of revolution may be around the corner.

You can't predict every disruption, but by preparing for these evergreen challenges, you can navigate growth proactively and with resilience.

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In 2015, hgkc published a white paper entitled The Challenges and Growing Pains of High Growth Businesses. Based on primary research conducted across a range of business, including clients, we framed our findings around Greiner’s model. Even though his original paper was published in Harvard Business Review 1972, we found his thinking still applied. If you would like to read more, you can download a copy here.

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Image by Franz P. Sauerteig from Pixabay